In 1870, Yoshioka Gondayu died in jail, imprisoned by the newly-installed Meiji government at the start of the Meiji reformation. But before that, he had been a man of some repute. Gondayu had sailed with Fukusawa Yuichi on the warship Kanrin-maru during Japan’s first official embassy to the United States of America in 1860, and was even mentioned in Fukusawa’s classic book, “Autobiography of Fukusawa Yuichi.” Gondayu had the official post of what we would now call an Administrative Official in the Navy, as well as being attached to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

But the government that Gondayu served under was the Tokugawa shogunate, and with the defeat of the Shogun’s private army in 1869 his once favored position left him as a marked man. The new Imperial Meiji government rounded up all of the members of the former military government and gave them a choice. They could surrender freely, admit guilt to false charges leveled against them, and be released but dishonored, or they could spend the rest of their days in a dark prison cell until death finally took them. Gondayu was not alone in refusing to buy his freedom at the cost of his honor.

Now, Yoshioka’s death seems to be a purely political contrivance, but there were those who thought otherwise. In 1932, Yoshioka’s grandson published a book about his grandfather, titled “A Biographical Sketch of Yoshioka Gondayu.” In the book, Yoshioka’s grandson laid the blame not on the Meiji government, but on the mansion where Yoshioka had lived. A place infused with evil energy.

After the battle of Toba-Fushimi in the Boshin War (1868), Gondayu followed his lord, the shogun Tokyogawa Yoshinobu, back to Edo. Much to his surprise, even in defeat Gondayu was gifted with a hereditary mansion to retire in. The mansion, it is said, came to Gondayu through his connections with the Head Representative of the voyage on the Kanrin-maru, and as a reward for his services there. The mansion had formerly been the property of Vice Port Warden Kaishu Kimura, and the particular nature of this mansion was first mentioned by an editor in the introduction to Kaishu’s book “Kikuso Guhitsu.”

Although he owned the mansion, Kaishu himself had never lived there, and he was thankful for that. The mansion, it was said, was a cursed, and had caused the deaths of many of its residents. The first person to fall under the curse was Nagai of the Bishu clan, who had been rebuked by the clan lord for some misdeeds and sentenced to house arrest. In the mansion, Nagai became painfully ill, and eventually took his own life. The next resident was a wealthy man who hung himself in the mansion for unknown reasons. Then there was Gondayu, who died in prison not long after inheriting the property.

After Gondayu, the mansion fell into the hands of a man who used it for clandestine affairs with his prostitute lover. One night, in a fit of madness, the man slew his lover and then killed himself. He was found sitting on his own toilet with his own sword shoved through his body. All told around six or seven residents of the mansion met with grim endings.

The mansion retains its notoriety and sense of dread, even though a great number of people have lived there and experienced no problems whatsoever. But the Japanese people love a good story, and will instantly believe that the mansion is cursed even though the accidental deaths seems to be a matter of odds rather than some sort of lingering curse.

Stories like this, of strange coincidences and unnatural happenings, are usually bound together by a single string. This connecting string can be almost anything, from the location of a certain home or the grudge of a certain person, or even some unrelated fatality in the past that taints a place with evil energy. In the case of Yoshioka Gondayu’s Cursed Mansion, there is no foundation of the legend, nothing linking together the random deaths other than they were all at sometime residents of the same mansion. This, I think, should serve as a warning.

Japanese people have as a moral guiding principal the Buddhist system of karma, or cause-and-effect and retribution. But in practice that cannot explain the truths of people’s lives and deaths. According to the system of karma, those who avoid doing bad things will find safety and peace of mind. But life is not really that simple. There are things that happen for no reason whatsoever, and curses reach out to those who are entirely unrelated.

It is said that the vast majority of Yokai are born from the emotions of human, especially the powerful emotions of fear, yearning or hate.

But there are other ways for a Yokai to come into being:

1. From the violence of natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, windstorms or volcanic eruptions.

2. From the fear of dying accompanying disease and dire poverty.

3. From fear of animals, especially the terror humans feel at the prospect of being eaten by some beast.

4. From plants with lifespans that outstrip humans, like cedar and pine trees. It was thought that these trees would live forever, and there was a desire of humans to believe in something that had power over death, something indestructible.

5. From human belief in superstitions and stories, or the teachings of religions. There are things that scientific knowledge cannot explain, and it is there that Yokai are born.

Generally speaking, yokai and obake are two words that mean the same thing. If a distinction must be made, it could be said that obake are those creatures which somehow change from one form to another (the Japanese word bakeru which forms the root of obake means to change for the worse, or adopt a disguise).

Examples are transforming kitsune (foxes) or of the dead people whose lingering grudges cause them to appear as yurei, or a myriad of other shape-changers.

What kinds of Yokai are there?

If you wanted to organize yokai by large categories, it could be said that there are Yurei (spirits of the dead) Kaiju (monsters), Henge (shape-changers) and Choshizen (supernatural phenomena).

A chart would look like this:

Yokai

Yurei

Kaiju

Henge

Choshizen

Examples are hitodama, borei and shiryo, and onryo. The spirits of humans still lingering on Earth.

Animals or insects with mysterious and magical powers.

Anything that can change from one form to another.

Mysterious or puzzling phenomena.

How many kinds of Yokai are there in Japan?

As a rule, it is said that there are about a thousand different species of yokai. But if you limit it to those that have appeared in pictures or those about which we have some information, then it is really roughly four hundred different species.

But there are many yokai of other countries. Nobody knows the number of worldwide yokai.

What is the largest Yokai of them all?

That is the Onyudo. The body of the Onyudo is as large as Mt. Fuji. However, it is said that even if angered the Onyudo would never cause harm to humans.